write:Whileabolitionist papers such as William Lloyd Garrison’sLiberator of Boston condemned the war with Mexicofrom its inception Whig papers tended to be just aspatriotic as Whig co

beating and torturing both the editor and hissupporters. Federalist editors in Savannah
Alexandria
Richmond
and New York City were also silenced by thethreat of mob action. Outside New England
oppositionto the war was viewed as treasonous.45The Federalist Party was ultimately destroyed by itsopposition to the War of 1812
of course. Whileabolitionist papers such as William Lloyd Garrison’sLiberator of Boston condemned the war with Mexicofrom its inception
Whig papers tended to be just aspatriotic as Whig congressmen in 1846. Because of itseconomy
relatively strong antislavery sentiment
andWhig majority
New England continued to be the oneregion in which it was safe to express opposition toAmerican war
whether against England in 1814
NativeAmerican tribes in the 1820s and 1830s
or Mexico in1846
and mainstream Whig papers in New Englandproved more willing to oppose America’s invasion ofMexico
and the behavior of U.S. troops
than paperselsewhere.But by the summer of 1847
even hardened journalistsfrom outside New England found themselves forced toreport on and condemn American atrocities that leftthem questioning their assumptions about Americanmorality. It appeared that “the harsh treatment andprivations the men are subjected to soon make onecallous to all but his own feelings and interests
” onejournalist explained.46The February massacre at Agua Nueva
when theArkansas Rackensackers killed at least twenty-veMexican civilians in a cave
was a key turning point inthe reporting of the war. Few soldiers who hadwitnessed the event and scalped corpses could refrainfrom discussing it
and some of those who died at Buena